Monday, 7 March 2016

Travel Agent's Guide : Selecting The Right Destination

Selecting the right and appropriate destination is the most important thing in a vacation. After a hard earned vacation, it is definitely not right when there is always a second thought that” it could have been better”. Nor would it be pleasing to hear from your family that it was very boring or they are not at all grateful to you for taking theme to a holiday. Even worse if the honeymoon is not as memorable as it was expected to be. To suggest the right destination a Online Travel Agents should know or should be told the likes & dislikes of the travellers. This will help them to short-list the type of destination. Clean beaches with pristine clean water kissing the shores may be NOT ACCEPTABLE to someone with a ‘ dislike ‘ or a fear of water. In fact, for them a beautiful desert safari or a short walk to the Glacier Region in New Zealand could be much more enthralling. A tour programme with trekking and too many “ moving around ” may not be “ amazing” to a person who is otherwise busy and running around in tours. For such a person, a relaxing river cruise or a lazy beach holiday could be more than “ amazing”. A vacation with the children could be “ awesome” to a place with amazing theme parks, safaris or nature parks. Teenagers could find themselves enjoying in adventure activities like desert scooters, or riding jet speed boats or thrilling roller coasters. A good travel consultant must be able to read the thoughts and dreams of his client. Like one of my client told me that his fiancé was very much attracted to a particular scene from a Hollywood movie. The first half of their 15 day honeymoon was planned in Krabi , Thailand. I had booked a Pool Villa with a Jacuzzi and magnificent view. They were given a grand welcome with garlands and flower bouquet, a sparkling bottle of wine was waiting for them in the room. A romantic candle lit dinner was organised in one of those days. Twice in the stay period of 7 days, they were provided spa treatments in the hotel spa. When the dream sequence for the bride was created and they moved out of Krabi. After days of peace and leisure, an eventful week in Bangkok was waiting for them. We had booked for them seats in the Bangkok Dinner Cruise on the Chao Phraya River, classical Thai dance with dinner and Calypso Cabaret. The days were provide with a trip to the safari park and city tour( different type) by boat, Skytrain and tuk-tuk. Over the 10 years of my practise in the travel trade, I have had military veterans, who wanted to see the sites of WWII in Europe and the Nazi concentration camp; a renowned musician who visited Salzburg to get some original and rare compositions of Mozart; sexagenarian couples visiting small towns like Sevile, Valencia, the Tuscan region in Italy and French towns of Nice and Monte Carlo; and many more. In one of my feedback, I had got from my client, I had got his teenage sons to realise their dreams by getting them to visit Ferrari World from Dubai.